Steve Jobs' rant against Android, RIM, and 7" tablets couldn't go by unnoticed, of course. We already had the rather dry response from Google's Andy Rubin, but Mountain View isn't the only one who responded. TweetDeck's CEO wasn't particularly pleased by Jobs distorting TweetDeck's story on developing for Android, and now we have RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie who slammed Cupertino pretty hard.

RIM's response was rambling and the talking points were lofty and abstract, not to mention unoriginal. I don't care which side you're on, Jobs hits Android square in the nose with this one. Android has fragmented, and that has demonstrable effects on both users and developers. Linux has shown that fragmentation is the death knell for a platform. iOS on the other hand is as unified and cohesive as Android is fragmented. All apps are forward compatible, and iOS4 can still be run on three-generations-old iPhones. You have to give it to him that he spun 'closed' in a very interesting way.